http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/world/africa/tanzania-elections-zanzibar.html?_r=0
I am currently in Zanzibar.
A brief summary of events as I understand them (note a lot of this information comes from speaking to locals and not from official news sources):
-Zanzibar is falls under the union government elected in Tanzania
-It is also semi-autonomous and has separate elections to determine a local government
-The ruling party in Tanzania (CCM) has been in power, both on the mainland and in Zanzibar, for half a century
-The main opposition in Zanzibar (CUF) claims to have been cheated out of the last couple of elections. The feeling amongst locals is that CUF won the previous election only for the Zanzibar Electoral Committee to announce a CCM victory without proper explanation
-Voting took place on Sunday, on Monday the candidate for CUF announced that he had won the elections
-Tensions were running very high for a few days in anticipation of the announcement of official results, Stonetown the capital was transformed into a ghost town on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with most people too scared to leave their homes
-Yesterday the ZEC announced that the elections were not fair and as such the results were annulled and everyone will need to repeat the voting process
-The feeling here is that CUF had won again and that CCM therefore decided to annul the election instead of relinquishing power.
-Strangely enough, today everything has returned to normal. People have opened shops and restaurants again and locals are back on the streets.
The place is absolutely packed with military and police. What is quite worrying to me is that a lot of the military squads are armed with just sticks and AK47's. It seems like they really should have some better crown control measures. I mean, if **** hits the fan their only option is beating the crowd with sticks and if that fails, switch to machine guns?
It's going to be interesting to see what happens when the next round of voting takes place.
I am currently in Zanzibar.
A brief summary of events as I understand them (note a lot of this information comes from speaking to locals and not from official news sources):
-Zanzibar is falls under the union government elected in Tanzania
-It is also semi-autonomous and has separate elections to determine a local government
-The ruling party in Tanzania (CCM) has been in power, both on the mainland and in Zanzibar, for half a century
-The main opposition in Zanzibar (CUF) claims to have been cheated out of the last couple of elections. The feeling amongst locals is that CUF won the previous election only for the Zanzibar Electoral Committee to announce a CCM victory without proper explanation
-Voting took place on Sunday, on Monday the candidate for CUF announced that he had won the elections
-Tensions were running very high for a few days in anticipation of the announcement of official results, Stonetown the capital was transformed into a ghost town on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with most people too scared to leave their homes
-Yesterday the ZEC announced that the elections were not fair and as such the results were annulled and everyone will need to repeat the voting process
-The feeling here is that CUF had won again and that CCM therefore decided to annul the election instead of relinquishing power.
-Strangely enough, today everything has returned to normal. People have opened shops and restaurants again and locals are back on the streets.
The place is absolutely packed with military and police. What is quite worrying to me is that a lot of the military squads are armed with just sticks and AK47's. It seems like they really should have some better crown control measures. I mean, if **** hits the fan their only option is beating the crowd with sticks and if that fails, switch to machine guns?
It's going to be interesting to see what happens when the next round of voting takes place.
